RE: CRASH CONTAGION

From: Keith Henson (hkhenson@cogeco.ca)
Date: Thu Jan 17 2002 - 20:55:13 GMT

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Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 15:55:13 -0500
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: Keith Henson <hkhenson@cogeco.ca>
Subject: RE: CRASH CONTAGION
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    At 02:50 PM 17/01/02 +0000, Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk>
      wrote:

    snip

    >What you need to do is demonstrate that the
    >post-media suicides have been directly caused by that media coverage.
    >Otherwise, it is a specious association.
    >
    > The reason it is largely rejected by much of the media studies
    >community is that it infers a level of media power of audiences that has
    >been demonstrated by much other research to not exist. It suggests that is
    >media coverage that made people go out and commit suicide (or in other
    >Phillips' studies commit transport accidents, which also apparently rise
    >after media reports), yet studies on a range of other behaviours- including
    >notably, voting behaviour- have shown this kind of influence does not occur.
    >Why some social phenomena appear to occur more frequently after media
    >coverage is not known, but what is pretty widely accepted, in my field at
    >any rate, is that it is not a product of direct media power.

    I don't see where the objection is. Because media has been demonstrated
    not to have power over people's minds in on some areas does not imply that
    it lacks this power in other areas.

    Even if it were an ethically permitted thing to do, how could you devise a
    test for media inducing a higher suicide incidence?

    Keith Henson

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